Longford TD critical of 'unfair' comments by former Taoiseach and party leader Varadkar

Longford TD Micheál Carrigy has hit out at former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his former party leader over his 'unfair' comments where he suggested rural Ireland was not paying its way.

The comments were made on a recent episode of Matt Cooper's podcast, where the former Taoiseach suggested that urban.
populations are “the ones paying all the bills,” while rural communities are “in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don’t get.”

Deputy Carrigy said, "I wouldn't support his comments. We've been always fighting for services in rural Ireland.

"We don't have DARTs, we don't have the Luas, so we don't even have a motorway beyond Mullingar in our region.

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"I know it's in the National Development Plan now, but we've had to fight for that. I don't think it's fair to say that rural Ireland isn't paying its way.

"It's people from this part of the country travelling up and down to Dublin five days a week on the buildings, opening businesses, you know.

"So, as I say, they aren't comments that I concur with, or indeed Fine Gael, I think we want balanced regional development.

"Across the country, services for people throughout Ireland.

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"We don't have that yet, we're working towards it, but just those comments, I wouldn't agree with them.

Deputy Carrigy said following the economic crash, it was agriculture that 'kept' the country strong.

"t was the backbone of the rural economy supplying [produce] into our city."